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| Roughly translated: "I am in great pain, please help me" |
Monday
Monday was a sleep in day, which was then going to be followed with some sight seeing... I woke up late, got out of bed, showered, ate some breakfast (bacon and eggs... Which was the first time I'd made eggs without the input or supervision of someone else in as long as I can remember...), and then sat on my computer.
My plan for the day was to do the CNN tour and then play it by ear for the rest of the day. So, I jumped on the computer to book a tour. It was about 11 AM and the earliest tour that was being offered online was the 1:40 PM, which meant that I would have to leave at about 1 PM to make it there by the required 1:20 PM ticket pick up time...
When it came time to go Khea drove me in and I went inside CNN and picked up my ticket for the tour. The first thing that struck me was that I probably could've just showed up anything and bought a ticket, so there was about 2 hours wasted between booking the ticket and showing up for the tour, and the floor of the food court (which was the bottom floor of the building) was made to look like a map of the world with CNN branches shown with gold dots.
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| This is the longest escalator in the world apparently, it goes 7 stories and is supported only at the top and the bottom |
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| The Rickest Rick usually hangs out with the Mortyest Morty |
I then lined up for the tour, which stereotypically was full of Asians with cameras... Expensive cameras... And also full of kids... The kind of kids who would not pay attention for the entire duration of the tour and ruin it for the rest of us...
We went through a security screening which would rival entering any arena I've been to since in the USA, then rode the 7 story escalator. At the top was an anchor desk where I had my photo taken pretending to read the news... I don't have the photograph to show you because I would've had to pay $20 for it, but believe you me, it wasn't worth the money... Casual clothes and messy hair does not a good anchor make...
We began in a room which was meant to illustrate the screen that program directors see, with the pre-live screen, the live screen, all the other feeds... We even got to hear them give some commands to the live feed... Which was only the words 'Ready 3', which meant to put feed 3 into the next in line screen to be the next thing on live...
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| So many screens! |
'Our way' Moment of the Day
Tour Guide (Lindsay): "Are there any questions?"
Sam: 'So, how long does it take to put new material on the auto-cue?"
Lindsay: "The teleprompter?"
Sam: 'Yeah, so, if breaking news came up would it be able to be placed straight onto the auto-cue or is that not how it is done?'
Lindsay: "OK, so, the teleprompter generally is programmed well in advance, and will match the papers that the anchors have in front of them. When they see the word 'break' in the teleprompter it is a prompt for them to turn the page in front of them, so that way if there are any issues or breakdowns with the teleprompter they have their place on the script right in front of them"
Sam: 'So, breaking news doesn't make it onto the auto-cue?'
Lindsay: "No, that will be sent to the anchor in an email which is why they all have laptops on their desk"
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| "The teleprompter can be made quicker or slower depending on the anchor" - Lindsay, 2014 |
The entire time we were shadowed by a big, tall black security guard, who aside from holding doors, provided the menace that a 50kg blonde white girl couldn't muster when the Asians with cameras got too rowdy and refused to be quiet when she tried to commentate on the tour... Where we were, what we were seeing, all that... Once or twice he had to bring the mind games...
We then headed down to the newsroom, which has 3 shifts of workers, but if there is a breaking story they can call them all in at once.
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| CNN Newsroom |
We then headed to the floor directly above the food court, which gave us a much better view of the map of the world on the floor, and perhaps fittingly we stopped in front of the CNN International newsroom. There are international branches in London, and I think Abu Dhabi, but don't quote me on the second one... The interesting thing is that a large portion of the programming is still dictated from Atlanta. They were setting up for an ad hoc cross, so the bright lights were on, but we didn't see anyone on camera... I did see a rather interesting story on the monitors being a FIFA World Cup Corruption Report... FIFA corrupt? No...
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| CNN International Networks studio |
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| A better view of the world map on the food court floor |
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| Bright lights on the far right for the live cross |
The treat of the tour was seeing someone on HLN going live... We weren't meant to take photos because if we distracted her then we'd get in a lot of trouble (I was expecting the guard to do his thang), but I got a few shots before we were quietly but forcefully told not to take any...
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| Live on the TV |
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| I didn't actually get her name :-/ |
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| This is what the rest of the world was seeing |
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| Final shot of the CNN Center |
I was disappointed that there was no Rick and Morty stuff inside the gift shop and then decided to walk through the Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta, of course, the site for the 1996 Olympics, the 100th in the modern Olympics. I walked down to the 'World of Coca-Cola', which probably wasn't necessarily for me (insofar as, I drink Sprite and not Coke), but I went in anyway.
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| Centennial Park |
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| Centennial Park - The Olympic Rings |
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| Hadn't seen that flag in a while... Not since CNN |
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| Pierre de Coubertin - Founder of the Modern Olympic Movement |
Apparently Coca-Cola was originally used/marketed a way to relieve headache and exhaustion, and they would sell on average 9 glasses of Coca-Cola in Atlanta every day... How times have changed... Now its millions of glasses/bottles/cans per day worldwide...
I'll stop trying to sell Coke as much as possible in this post, but in re-telling what I was told it will become clear (if it isn't already) that the World of Coca-Cola is one massive marketing wank for Coke...
The best of the artifact gallery is below:
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| Old school soda dispenser |
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| Old-timey Coke machines, but not as old-timey as the bronzed guy above |
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| Olympic Torches from several of the more recent Olympics |
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| London 2012 Torch |
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| Coca-Cola pins from various sporting events around the world |
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| "The Vault" |
I couldn't really be arsed sitting through the 4D movie about the search for the secret formula, partly because it looked very kiddy, and also the vault's circular room kind of ruined me for the whole 'things are flying at me but I'm watching TV' deal...
The best part of the World of Coca-Cola was the tasting room... They had over 100 Coca-Cola brand beverages from around the world (Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America)... I took advantage of the drinks and just had as much as I could handle and then walked out through the gift shop... They gave us a bottle to take home, the bottle was room temperature and was I assume made on site (because there were bottles being carried above the room)...
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| Tasting Room |
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| Tasting Room with the bottles being carried in seen at the top of the shot |
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| You paid $16 to enter the museum, have a Coke on us! |
I made my way back home and got ready to make dinner... Scott had made ribs, and I was making my Cheesey Mac as a side/alternative... But we needed to get a few ingredients, so Khea and I rushed to the shops, grabbed what we needed, headed back and I began cooking.
British Moment of the Day:
Checkout Guy: "I like your shirt, Planet Express, nice! They're still making new episodes right?"
Sam: 'Thanks. I don't know, probably... We'll get them in a few years if you guys are having them now'
Guy: "Oh, right, yeah, I guess you're not from around here, as soon as you started speaking"
Sam: 'Yeah, that'd be my accent'
Guy: "You guys have some great stuff as well though... Uh... Blackadder... Mr. Bean was another one... And I loved Red Dwarf..."
Sam: 'Yeah, we had a good run'
My making of Cheesey Mac went down well, which gives me confidence that I will be able to handle it when I get to Italy... Apparently being in the Northern Hemisphere doesn't affect the brilliance of it... Anyway, it was a really good dinner, the ribs were amazing, not like Rendezvous because they were more in BBQ sauce than any kind of dry rub but they were absolutely beautiful and I'd go again if I had them in front of me right now... But the first time I'd eaten my mac in several weeks was a nice touch of home... Brilliant times
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| Cheesey Mac - Not just a Klemperer Cup winning Fantasy Football team |
Tuesday
I woke up late again, I think I might need a day just to sleep and do nothing...
But it wouldn't be Tuesday... I got up, had breakfast (there was leftover pancake batter, so) chocolate chip pancakes and when that wasn't enough I knocked over half of the mac that remained.
Scott was heading into his office so he dropped me off at the Atlanta History Center which was nearby. I walked in, got the guide and then headed into the grounds.
There was a Gone with the Wind exhibit, which I skimmed... Having not seen the film it was only a passing interest to me...
I walked out to the Swan House, which was a house from 1930s Atlanta, and if I had to describe it in a word I would call it extravagant. The grounds were massive to begin with, the house had more rooms than you would need in a dozen lifetimes, and the library, the sitting room, the dining room and the bedrooms were nothing if not amazing. When I entered there was a woman dressed in 1930s maid clothes who chatted about the house and the artifacts inside, and all that... Not at all in character... The books in the library were legit, there were copies of Dickens books which were as old as the house... It took all my being not to pick some up and have a thumb through... Check out the extravagance that is the Swan House:
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| View from the front |
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| View of the back of the house, including a 1929 Hudson Super Six Sedan |
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| Dining Room - Notice the Swans on the table in the corner and the Eagle on top of the cabinet |
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| Library |
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| "Morning Room" |
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| Master Bedroom |
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| 1930s bathroom |
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| 1930s toilet |
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| View from the upstairs windows towards the fountain and the front |
There was a Victorian house out the back, which was a two room wooden hut... If that was legit then I wouldn't have lasted in the Victorian Era...
I then moved on to the Tullie Smith House, which was a house from 1860s Atlanta. The house had a barn out the front with goats or sheep or some other barnyard animals, a blacksmith, a corncrib (which I had to look up, it is a kind of granary to store and dry corn), a dairy, and a kitchen (which was another building altogether). The house itself had only 4 rooms, one large bedroom, a room with a table, a room with a loom, and a room with a desk. There was also a small room just off the front porch which was used for people passing through to stay without disturbing the family.
There were some people inside in the period garb. These people were so much better than the Swan House people, they were in character the entire time and DID NOT BREAK CHARACTER the entire time! There were two women doing 1860 women tasks, one black woman subservient to the white woman, and a man with a massive red beard, wearing Confederate clothing, walking around with a limp and with the thickest Southern accent going on. He chatted to the women about his rheumatism acting up and they chatted about the things they were doing, it was a thorough commitment to the moment (which was brilliant compared to the 1930s maid a half hour before the 1860s... Yeah, that made sense)...
Civil War Conversation of the Day:
Sam: "Good afternoon"
Johnny Reb: 'Good day to you sir'
Sam: "What is that room off the porch used for?"
Reb: 'Well, if a preacher or traveller is coming by and needs a place to stay, then they can walk by, see the door open and know that they can stay there. Especially if the traveller is a preacher, then we would invite them in and allow them to bless us with their precence. We built it because we got tired of people knocking on the door late at night and disturbing the family.'
Sam: "Do you charge for the night?"
Reb: 'Oh, no, we do not. If someone is staying there and they have a paper or other form of news then we ask them to share the news, that would be our payment I suppose... Because, Atlanta is about 5 miles that way, and people are trying to get out, you know, General Sherman captured the city and has burned it to the ground, so there've been a fair few people coming through'
Sam: "That sucks, can anyone stay here? Or is it just men of the cloth?"
Reb: 'Oh, well, anyone can stay, and we have had, on occasion, a few people who have been a bit... *does drinking motion*... but we know how to handle them...'
*Other tourists walk through*
Reb: 'Good afternoon Ma'am'
*Sam moves away*
This was amazing, the guy stayed in character the entire time... The reference to Sherman's March was the touch that sold it best for me... The women in the other room were going back and forth as well, the white woman accused the black woman of stealing scissors, and they were doing whatever they were doing... I didn't pay that much attention, I was more enthralled by the guy... It is a little offputting at times, I was expecting him to break character early on, but he didn't at all, and if you're able to suspend your disbelief for a moment it is really fun to picture that you're actually there, but maybe that is just me... I tell you this much though, it is much easier to get into it when there is a man wearing Confederate clothes, talking about General Sherman in Atlanta in a deep Southern accent while you stand in an 1860s style home, than it is to picture yourself as a cotton buyer in Memphis as you listen to a Mp3 player and city buses tear past you... Wonderful experience...
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| Farm out the front of the house - The smell of barn animals was strong |
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| Welcome to 1860s Atlanta |
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| Bedroom |
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| Loom room |
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| Scene of the above conversation - This guy was brilliant |
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| 1860s women doing their thing |
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| Porch |
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| Guest room |
In school we learned about the basics of the American Civil War... The major causes, state's rights, slavery and taxes... The belligerents, the Union in blue, the Confederates in grey... The pre-amble to the war, the Election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, deciding how new states to the west of the Mississippi River would be free or slave states, 'Bleeding Kansas'... ... ... The exhibit went into more depth on all of these things, it also provided a much greater depth on the key individual battles of the war, and showed a great deal of artifacts from the era.
The South planned to win the war by hoping that one massive victory over a 'Yankee' army would convince the North to leave the South alone, doubting the North's will to fight a full scale war to restore the Union; they also believed that the sheer size of territory that needed to be conquered would be impossible for the North to control. They also believed they had an emotional advantage of defending their homeland... The South fought to be independent, mainly due to the fear that their constitutional right to own slaves would be taken away from them by a Northern dominated government. Many in the South thought that secession from the Union was a natural right of self-determination, much like their forefathers had done during the American Revolution.
The North, similarly, thought that one major victory would be enough to make the Southerners realise their mistake; there was also doubt over whether or not the majority of Southerners actually wanted to leave the Union, thinking that it was the work of a few extremists. A full scale invasion of the South did not seem necessary, with Union generals favouring blockading Southern ports and capturing the Mississippi and waiting for the South to come to their senses... The North fought to maintain the Union, with many in the North fearing that if the South was allowed to leave the Union then the democratic government would fail and America would fragment into smaller squabbling dictatorships. Most volunteers from the North were not interested in ending slavery, but rather wanted to end a rebellion by slave owners. They believed that secession was treason and that this needed to be punished.
Americans at the time felt allegiance to their state or region first and not to the Federal government. People would think of themselves as Virginians, or New Yorkers, or Southerners first, and Americans second; many saw their country as a collection of states rather than a country, often referring to it in the plural "the United States are..." (as opposed to 'the United States is...')... States maintained their own armed militias and during the war the volunteer regiments were named by their states of origin.
This was as in depth as I've read about the Civil War since high school, so please excuse my enthusiasm for the 3-4 paragraphs above... Rather than give you a full run down on the war (which you can look up in your own time if you feel interested) I'll just say that it was a wonderful exhibit and I spent a long, long time there taking it all in...
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| Beginning of the exhibit |
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| Yankee Blue and Johnny Reb |
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| Artifacts from the war |
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| Collection of shells and cannonballs used in combat |
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| Timeline of the Atlanta Campaign (right to left) |
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| What happened in 1865 |
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| Loyalty Oaths were required to be signed by Confederate soldiers upon the end of the war |
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| My favourite story at the end of the exhibit |
After all that time in the Civil War exhibit I moved on to an exhibit on the 1996 Centennial Olympics. I did not know that Melbourne bid for the 1996 Olympics, but there you go, learn something new every day... Turns out that the Atlanta bid was cooked up by 9 friends at a dinner party or something, then they submitted the bid to the USOC, and the rest is history... Another thing I didn't know was that the Georgia Dome was built for the Olympics, which makes sense, but I had always thought it was just the Falcons arena... But in that lies the problem with this exhibit for me, I wasn't old enough to properly remember the Atlanta Olympics... I was in Mrs Hore's Year 3 class and all I can remember of the Olympics that year (aside from the mascot Izzy, whose full name I think was 'Whatizzy') was sitting in class and being happy that we were watching TV instead of doing school work, and watching Kieren Perkins win gold from lane 8 in the Final of the 1500m freestyle after he scraped into the final. You can see the second half of that race HERE if you want to get all nostalgic.
So, the Olympic section was fairly so-so on that basis, there was no mention of Perkins' gold and I couldn't really remember much of the rest of it, so I just browsed and went on through.
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| It's Atlanta |
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| Timeline of all the modern Olympics up until 1996 |
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| Day by day summary of the Games |
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| Atlanta medals |
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| Whatsit? |
I then headed back upstairs and spend about 3 minutes in a section on golfer Bobby Jones. Golf isn't really a sport I get into, so 3 minutes was probably excessive... The only reason I actually knew who he was is because I am good at remembering really average films, such as Matt Damon and Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance, where Will Smith plays a wandering black guy in the 1920s/30s who knows everything about golf and helps the war shocked Matt Damon not completely suck against Walten Hagan (played by Bruce McGill... The only reason I say his name is because I don't need to look his name up, he's been in films as a supporting character enough times that I've actually learnt his name) and Bobby Jones (no idea who played him)...
After this, I bought a Moon Pie, just so I could use this quote from The Simpsons, and to impress my former housemate who likes that line more than me... I met Lulu who was picking me up to take me home, after running a short errand we got back. I took a shower, got dressed in the best clothes I had (which on the travel junket isn't actually that nice, not nice nice anyway...) and we all headed out to dinner at a place called Twist. The restaurant was nice but it was apparently the site for a watch robbery some time earlier, however none of the family were there to be robbed because they were rushing to the bathroom to look after a daughter who had fainted in the bathroom... That's another story...
This was one of the nicest meals of the junket, and it was also the first time I met Harmony, the oldest of the girls. I had an 18-ounce Kansas Strip steak (you do the math, I didn't), which was a wonderful cut of meat, and then after that we all had dessert, which for me was a brownie cookie ice cream sandwich... It was very decadent... And the New York cheesecake was amazing, although I only had one small bite of that one...
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| (L-R) Khea, Harmony, Sam, Lila |
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| Dad, I hope you have safe flights to Atlanta |
After this wonderful meal we headed home and I got to packing my bag, and writing some blog. I also sat in for two episodes of The West Wing, which kind of had me wishing I'd stayed longer than the time I was there AND made me wish we had Netflix in Australia (though I hear that it is coming in 2015)... I am apparently easily hooked on TV shows, although, it might just be the lack of recent TV I have watched...
After this I went to bed, ready for a travel day the next day.
Wednesday
I got up early as I had to leave at about 9 AM to be at the airport in time for the run through security, Thanksgiving eve travellers, and my 11:55 AM flight to Orlando, Florida. I showered, finished packing, and headed up for breakfast, which was pancakes again, which was amazing times!
As Khea and Lila were heading out for their respective days I bid them farewell, said goodbye to Scott, and then headed off to the airport with Lulu. As it was a weekday there was an expectation that traffic would be heavy, but with it being the day before Thanksgiving I guess most people were on holidays or just didn't rock up to work, because the traffic was light by Atlanta at 9 AM standards...
The weather was amazing again, and downtown Atlanta was beautiful to drive by... Typical really that the one day I wanted nice pictures of outdoors, Sunday on the Big Zombie Tour, the weather was awful, but every other day it was picture perfect.
We arrived at the airport in a very quick amount of time, and I hopped out of the car, said my goodbyes and my thank yous and headed off for the rest of my adventures.
At this point I will end this post as this is basically the end of my time in Atlanta, but before I do I would just like to thank Scott, Lulu, Khea, Lila and Harmony for taking me in to their home and showing me a wonderful time. They were willing to put themselves out to drive me around or pick me up, made great suggestions about what to see in Atlanta, and were wonderfully kind to me throughout my entire stay. I am not sure they will read this, but if they do, can I just say it again: Thank you for having me!
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